Thursday, October 21, 2010

A few weeks after I threw my boots in the river I came back from Colorado and met Jo Meyers Walker a local artist. I started doing work for her around her store and talking alot about being an artist and working for myself.She started a little art market in the little tiny town of Gilbert called Mardi market and I began sewing pants. Pant's were something I had done for myself since middleshool. I'd buy an old pair of pants at goodwill and split the seams all the way up and add a bunch of fabric making for a really baggy pair of pants. It took me about 8 hours to make a pair. I started making bell bottoms and skirts too. The worst part about making clothes is that 1 size doesn't fit all. If I made a pair of pants and someone liked it, it was a slim chance that it'd fit them. I think I sold two pairs the entire summer to people who worked the market with me. It wasn't like I was doing that bad, most people didn't sell anything. I started to think about all of the other creative stuff I used to do like make stuff out of junk. When I was young and living at my mothers I'd tear apart old appliances and build sculptures out of them. When I was a senior I broke a few out for an art show and won a bit of money. When I was laid off from my job in Iowa City I'd spread all the junk out on the floor and build stuff with it too, I even sold a few back then to make a few bucks. Jo thought I should teach a Class to children on building junk sculptures and lined up 5 kids for the class. I rounded up all of my junk piled it in a big canvas, wrapped it up in sack-like fashion and threw it in the back of my VW bus. I proceeded to my new career as art teacher and would drag the stuff out and open the canvas out on the ground and let the kids rummage through it. I began to notice that teaching art was very exhausting. It's like taking al of the challenges that make art an art and multiplying it by how many students there were. At the end of a two hour session I felt as though I'd put in 12 hours already.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Do you hear that off in the distance? It's the stampede of the holiday shoppers. This guarantees I'll be here in front of this computer unless I'm eating sleeping or selling jewelry to real human people. I looked at my etsy feedback today. Somewhere I have 1 negative and 3 neutral feedbacks. After page 4 I decided I didn't have enough time to go through it all. I guess it's not that big of a deal. I feel like I don't have enough time a lot lately. Like I'm right on the crest of the stuff I've gotta get done wave and I'm paddling into it so I don't fall off. No glass ceiling means no time for stopping. I mean it's not like it's a bad thing, I'm making money hand over fist, it's just a little nerve wracking.

I began listening to meditation music while I'm working. I feel a lot less like being angry. It's either the music or I got most of my anger out when my car got towed.